


Demon's Touch

by tryslora



Category: Demon's Lexicon - Sarah Rees Brennan
Genre: Comfort, F/M, Gen, Grief, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-05
Updated: 2010-12-05
Packaged: 2017-10-13 13:06:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/137689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tryslora/pseuds/tryslora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nick Ryves didn’t feel a thing. He should feel something, he was sure of it. That would be the human way, to feel emotion after a tragic loss.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Demon's Touch

**Author's Note:**

  * For [crazykookie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/crazykookie/gifts).



> Many thanks to eternaleponine and zlot for the betas!!
> 
> This story takes place after the second novel, and is canon including potential spoilers for both of the first two novels. It assumes time has passed and the world has taken an AU twist into the events before this scene.

Nick Ryves didn’t feel a thing. He should feel something, he was sure of it. That would be the human way, to feel emotion after a tragic loss.

He had thought, at first, that he felt something. While he carried her body into the front room and laid her carefully on the sofa, Nick had reached inside the hole where his heart should lie. Empty. He felt empty, and he said the word aloud. Jamie had heard him and given him a startled look, then budged his bony shoulder up close to Nick’s. An action required a reaction, but Nick couldn’t make himself reach out; it took everything he had not to move away from the casual heaviness of Jamie’s body leaning against his. Still, it seemed Jamie took some comfort from the closeness Nick did allow.

They had stood there together until Alan came in. Under his brother’s gaze, the emptiness yawned around him, making Nick think that there ought to be something else that he was missing. Jamie cried with soft gulping sobs that shook his slender frame and soaked Nick’s shoulder as he pressed his face there. And Alan stood so stiffly it was as if he carried the weight of the world on his shoulder. His limp was more pronounced as he moved to kneel by the sofa and reached out to touch Mae’s pale shoulder.

Nick didn’t know what to do then. Alan’s shoulders shook faintly, his hand wrapped around Mae’s cold fingers. He stepped away from Jamie to move towards his brother, the thought in his mind to echo what he had seen of human behaviour and touch Alan’s head. Not because he wanted to, or because he felt drawn in, but because he knew Alan would appreciate the human gesture from him. He hesitated, hand hovering over Alan’s hair, fingers barely millimeters away, then drew his hand back, unable to complete the foreign motion.

It felt wrong to do it because it was what someone else wanted.

And as he’d once said to Mae herself, demons didn’t touch. At least, never for a kind reason. The memories of his true self might be buried deep, but enough leaked free to leave Nick shuddering when he thought of contact with another being.

He took a long step backwards quickly, checking himself for balance when Jamie was suddenly in the way, turning to move to the doorway instead. “I’ll be upstairs,” he said curtly.

And they let him go.

Upstairs, in this case, meant going into the attic of this building they had claimed as their own two months ago, then out through the window and onto the roof. He didn’t think Alan could follow him, and he knew Jamie probably wouldn’t.

He shouldn’t leave them alone. If he were human, perhaps he wouldn’t. He could go over the reasons why in his mind: that Jamie might do something stupid, like running to Gerald for comfort, or that Alan needed someone there to talk to. But when he reached out to touch those reasons, they were slippery with emotions he didn’t understand.

Every time he tried to taste how he felt, he still came up empty. He looked at the space on the roof next to where he sat and saw the darkness where he thought Mae should be, as if she’d been simply erased from his life.

It was strange what even a demon could become used to.

He thought of the way she danced, and it occurred to him that he would not see her dance again. That he would not see her smile, nor hear her calling out to Jamie, in glee or anger. But also that he would not have to watch her with Alan, their heads bent close together as they worked to figure a plan out.

And it also occurred to Nick that she would not touch him.

He had told her what touch meant to him, and she had looked back at him and nodded as if she understood. And for months, she had stayed close without ever brushing skin to skin. One of the first times that he could remember had been on this roof, while he sat in this same place, and she sat there. They had both set their hands against the ridge of the roof, and her fingers had brushed against his.

She apologized when he jerked his hand away.

But it happened again. And again. And again, until he fought to stay where he was because she was teaching him to be human, and touching was a human thing. And he wanted to do this thing, for Alan, who wanted a human brother more than anything.

The irony of it was that after six months of lessons, the one person in the world he had ever allowed to touch him lay dead on the sofa downstairs, and the person he had done it for cried over her body as if his heart broke.

And maybe it did, Nick couldn’t be sure.

In some respects, Mae had touched them both.

He knew that Alan fancied her. And he knew that Mae fancied them both; any fool could see that, if they looked. He had tried to push her towards Alan, knowing that she needed someone who could return her feelings, and that he needed someone human to be close to. But in the end, she had refused to turn away from either of them.

He respected her bravery, the way she was so determined to teach him what life meant to those who could feel. And he remembered the taste of her mouth, the feeling of drowning in pomegranate seeds and chocolate when she pressed her lips to his and he fought down the sick remembrance of what a kiss could truly mean.

But he knew she had kissed Alan as well. It didn’t bother him, even though he was sure that it should. Alan was better for her than he ever could be. Alan didn’t just see a strange hole in his life now that she was gone, Alan saw a tragedy.

Nick still saw emptiness.

He heard the scrape of the window, then the slow drag-thump of someone pulling themself up onto the roof. He thrust a hand out, gripping the wrist before he saw that it was Alan, and helped him up. Alan’s limp gave him a strange gait along the slant of the roof, but Nick held on, refusing to let him fall.

Alan sat where Mae usually placed herself, and Nick sat where he always sat, so they were only bare inches apart. If Nick wanted, he could reach out and touch Alan. It should be easy; he had practiced with Mae after all. And he had allowed Jamie to lean on him downstairs. But it didn’t seem so simple with Alan.

It never had.

“Do you miss her?” Alan’s voice was soft and hollow.

Such a simple question, which deserved an easy answer that Nick didn’t have. “There’s a hole where she ought to be,” he said, which was only the truth. He saw Alan’s expression ease as if he’d somehow said more with those few words.

“You were close,” Alan said. Nick flinched as Alan moved closer, body warm and solid where they sat hip to hip. There was a soft sound, something slipping, and Nick reacted without thinking, arm around Alan and grabbing his belt loop on the opposite hip, anchoring him before he could slide down the slanted roof.

Alan leaned into his touch in reaction, and Nick was caught, trapped there with this touch almost more intimate than anything he had done with Mae, save the kiss. He breathed roughly, fighting with remembered sensations, forcing them back.

This was Alan, the boy who had taken care of him since he was an infant. He was the reason Nick tried to be human. This, this touch… this was human. This was how humans comforted each other in the wake of senseless loss, like Mae’s death had been.

A deep breath in, then out, and Nick forced himself to relax as much as he could. He was still wary, as stiff as he ever was, thoroughly aware of the world around them. He couldn’t relax, not completely, not if he wanted to protect those who remained under his guard.

“I failed to protect her.” Simple truth. “I won’t fail again.”

Alan breathed in and out, a rhythmic motion that lulled Nick’s senses. “I know,” he said. “I trust you.”

Trust was one of those human emotions that bewildered Nick. It made no sense, to let one’s guard down around someone simply because you trusted them not to harm you.

And yet…

And yet… here he was with Alan, his arm around his waist, and he knew in the depth of his bones that Alan would not harm him. Was this trust?

Another soft breath and a shade more relaxation.

Perhaps, yes, it was trust. Whatever it was, it began here, in the aftermath.


End file.
